Beasts of the Sky: Strange Sightings in the Stratosphere

Often the sky is conceptualised as a place of infinite possibilities, past the limits of our scientific explorations – and into the realms of our fiction and speculation; it is the site for our thoughts on the future, of the extra-terrestrial and beyond. Our representations in the media of space, sky and the infinite invariably mediate social and cultural anxieties that are current, looming and indeed threatening. These concerns range from the environment and fears of ecosystem collapse; the nuclear arms and space race; modernity, utopia and dystopia. Beasts of the Sky: Strange Sightings from the Stratosphere is the third and final collection in the Beasts series. This collection offers its readers an in-depth and interdisciplinary engagement with the skies above and their monstrous inhabitants, through critical readings of science fiction and popular culture – through the media of film, television, popular music, digital games and animation. Within this collection there are a multitude of convergent critical perspectives used to engage and explore fictional and real monstrosities of the sky and space in media. As with previous collections, Skies features chapters from a variety of academic perspectives; genre and narrative, textual analysis, spectatorship and reception, Tolkien studies, performance studies, digital media and indeed fiction are featured. Under examination are a wide range of narratives and media forms that represent, reimagine and create subjects as varied as the threat of nuclear weapons, sightings of UFOs, space exploration and flying creatures.

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Beasts of the Sky Part 1:         FILMING SCARY SKIES Chapter 1: Gravity's Earth, Rachel Steward Chapter 2: A Short Vision's Reception and Perception:The Story of an        Animation that Came Unnoticed, Uninvited, Sara Khalili Part 2:         ALIENS: ALLIES AND ADVERSARIES Chapter 3: Archetype as History in Hollywood Science Fiction of the 1950s, James Williamson Chapter 4: The Quest for New Cinematic Grammar in Denis Villeneuve's Arrival (2016), James Keyes Part 3: ANIMATING SKY-BORNE BEASTS Chapter 5: The Magic and the Mundane in Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, Francis M. Agnoli Chapter 6: From Ocean to Outer Space: Digital Creatures Surviving in Generative Animation and the Re-evolution of Games, Chunning (Maggie) Guo Part 4: WRITING THE SKIES Chapter 7: Fell Beasts and fell beasts: The Making of a Monster in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Damian O'Byrne Chapter 8: Buffalo Wings of Desire, Jay Russell Biographies

About the Author :
Dr Jon Hackett is a Senior Lecturer in Film and Television at Brunel University and former Head of the Department of Communications, Media and Marketing at St Mary's University. He is author (with Dr Mark Duffett, of the University of Chester,) of Scary Monsters: Monstrosity, Masculinity and Popular Music. His current research focuses on migration in the media, and political cinemas. Dr Seán Harrington is an academic and lecturer, who currently lives and works in Dublin, Ireland. He has taught cohorts of students from UCD (Ireland), Boston University (USA), Brunel, West London (UK) and St. Mary's University, Twickenham (UK). While he has previously published work on animation and psychoanalytic theory, he has a special love of weird fiction and all things horror. Damian O'Byrne is a Senior Lecturer at St Mary's University, Twickenham and is Course Lead for the university's Foundation Year. His background is in graphic design and he teaches across a range of practical modules that focus on magazine design, digital art and photographic manipulation. His research interests have concerned digital media and specifically the role and impact of live television news from a Baudrillarian perspective. He also edits, designs and publishes SBG magazine, an independent magazine about wargaming in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth. Damian has recently begun to combine his personal passion for Tolkien with his academic career and is embarking on a PhD focussing on the practices of Middle-earth fan communities.